Shared Borders

Did you know that you can insert, remove and/or modify shared borders in FrontPage?

Shared borders are sections of the page (top, bottom, right, left) that are used as containers to hold content that you want to appear on all your pages such as your navigation menu. The instructions below apply to FP 2003, but are similar in earlier versions.

Insert a Shared Border

Now this is a no-brainer . . . Go to File > Open Web and click on the web that you want to work on.
Open the page where you want the shared border. You can do this from Navigation view or Folders view.
Go to Format > Shared Borders. Shared borders in FP 2003 by default is turned off. To turn it on go to Tools > Page Options > Authoring > and select the Shared Borders check box, then click OK.
In the Shared borders dialog box, click on "All Pages" if you want the borders on all the pages in your web, or Current page if you only want the shared border on the open page.
Select the desired border(s): top, bottom, right, left, by click to select the checkbox.
Click OK to close the Shared Borders dialog box.

Edit a Shared Border

To make changes to a shared border, you can open either the page that uses the shared border or the file that contains the shared border you wish to change. (Note: In Design (or Normal) view the page appears to have a table layout. If you view the HTML code, you will only see the code for your central page. The content for shared borders is found in the borders folder.)

Follow steps 1 and 2 in "Insert a Shared Border".
Next, on your web page, click inside the shared border and make the change(s) that you want. If this is the first change you've made you will see the following notation:

Comment: This border appears in all pages in your Web. Replace this comment with your own content.

Click on the Comment text and insert your change.
Then click File > Save > Close (if you're finished working on that page).

To make a change to the "shared border" file, go to your Folder list and look for the folder that reads _borders. To make changes directly to the shared border file,

Expand the folder by clicking on the + sign. Right-click on the border you want to change (Top.htm, Bottom, htm, Left.htm or Right.htm) and click Open.
Then follow steps 2 and 3 above.

Remove a Shared Border

To remove shared borders,

Go to File > Open Web and in the Open Web dialog box and click Open again.
Next go to Format > Shared Borders.
In the Shared Borders dialog box, in the Apply section, Click either All pages or Current page; check or uncheck the appropriate border boxes and then Click OK to close the Shared Borders box.

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